Chapter 3

Sunday morning was gray and rainy and should have been miserable. Instead, it was glorious. We lay abed, entwined, listening to the rain pelt off the windows. At one point, Drat came to the bedroom door and simply stared, balefully, then went away, silent; smart cat, which is probably redundant. Wind rattled the big, draped bedroom window. We sighed and shifted, making ourselves comfortable in each other's arms - and legs - and hands - and -

And at some point she was crouched over my fiendishly erected self, stuffing me into her. I opened my mouth to speak, but she silenced me with a gentle finger on my lips. I watched her face and understood: Later. Then she bent and buried her face in the hollow of my collarbone. I wish I could devise a way to save her moist, warm exhalations. Slowly, gracefully - was there anything she did otherwise? - she straightened until she was prone atop me, motionless... on the outside. She was gently, rhythmically pulsing on my cock, pulling on it.

I carefully flipped her hair up onto my face, just to inhale its bouquet, then began running my fingertips slowly and lightly over her flesh, savoring the bumps of her spine, counting her ribs, appreciating her wee waist, then gliding across the taper of her sleek hips, finally coming to rest on her compact buttocks to gently squeeze, appreciate and marvel.

Fran's pulsings were becoming less regular and a bit more insistent. Her breathing had become shallow. I let my thumbs trail to the inside of her buttocks, felt her gasp and quicken when one touched her anus. In moments, she was cumming uncontrollably - which, of course, means that I was, too. And as her orgasm waned, she moaned my name against my chest. I mean: I think she did; it was a bit muffled, so Fran could have been groaning, "Oh, my."

I repeated my caress pattern on her as our breathing slowed.

"Can we just stay here, like this, forever?" she whispered.

"Only if one of us wins the Lottery."

She found that as funny as the Catholic reference to the mohair towels, chuckling against my chest. Which meant there was some squishing of mammaries, and, all things considered, I thought this would be a good time to ask.

"Your tits are awfully big for your, er, ethnicity... and frame. Not that I'd complain, but - augmented?"

She sighed, which was another treat. "No. All me." She squirmed upright, one of the blankets draped around her shoulders. "I've been kind of waiting for this question."

"Get that a lot, eh: 'What's a nice Vietnamese girl like you doing with tits like that?'"

"Ever since I was 12 or so. I have no idea." She looked down at the tits under discussion. "Nobody in my family had a bust like this, not even my sisters."

Sisters? Oh; right.

"I've thought about having them reduced. Surgically." She saw the look on my face. "Well, not for long, but it has occurred to me." She hesitated. "Why haven't you brought this up before? I mean, it's not like you didn't notice."

OK, so now we were going to find out how far we were willing to be honest: "Umm, if I told you I didn't have a thing for big tits, would you believe me?"

"Maybe..."

"Try 32DD."

She blinked at me. "You're exaggerating, right?"

"Only if her custom-made bra-strap was lying."

Fran sighed slowly. "Talk about backaches."

"And welts. Major welts."

"When?"

"About the time you were born. When the subject finally got discussed, the statistics were 32DD-21-31. And 5 feet tall."

Fran was gawking at me. "She was, like, a stripper?"

"She was a nice Jewish girl from Philadelphia who wanted to be a classical dancer."

"Not with boobs like that."

I shook my head. "No. She could have made a living off her figure, but she didn't have to. She eventually realized she was an heiress. Instead, it merely broke her heart." Merely. Like the way I tossed that off? One of the sweetest, gentlest, most personally generous people I'd ever know. Merely broke her heart, because she was stupid enough to be born with genes that gave her a figure that would make most of us walking hormones who are called "Men" unable to see anything but the big tits on the tiny frame. Merely. And about 10 centuries from now, when our great-great-great grandchildren are wondering why the Marie Curies and Amelia Erharts were so rare, what do we tell them? "Sorry, we were only looking for big tits, at least until gravity got to them. So we didn't pay attention to big brains or big talent."

Yes, it pisses me off. Fran was smart and idealistic. Barbara was smart and dedicated to the (arcane, to me) ideal of expressing beauty through movement and music. All anyone paid attention to was their tits. I've got nothing against tits - not as much as I'd like to have, sed the Male Chauvanist Pig - but how clever is it to ignore a basic fact: Cows have bigger tits, but humans, including the female variety, have better brains. And when a female-variety human with a terrific mind comes along, how damn smart is it to sandbag her because she's got tits that are big (but not as big as a cow's)?

"What attracted you to her, then - mutual love for Shakespeare?"

Truncate, I thought. "We were in the same apartment building, and she decided I could use some company. I didn't know about the figure until... She usually wore these big, loose dresses called mu-mus, and I figured she was a squat, pudgy college girl with a sweet disposition and liberal-arts head looking for a little adventure." I shrugged.

"So, uh, what happened to her?"

Ooof/ I thought about it and realized Fran was staring at me. Total honesty; nothing less would do.

"I don't know for sure. We lost touch."

"Why?" She read my expression and shook her head. "No, Mike, I can tell you really thought a lot of her, and not because of these -" At which point she cupped, hefted and bounced her boobs. Which didn't bounce much. "She was special to you."

I sat up, stood and padded toward the living room, pausing to pull a totally disheveled blanket with and then about me. I flopped on the sofa and grabbed my cigarettes as Fran oozed into the sofa next to me under a blanket of her own. Drat, of course, fled back to her corner under the dining table.

"So some friends of hers at grad school, in Philly, set her up with a blind date. Who proceeded to tie her up and rape her."

Fran was staring at me as I took a drag on my smoke.

"She came to stay with me for a couple of days, but she didn't even want to cuddle or be touched."

"I think I can understand that."

"Yeah. So I put her in touch with some people, including the first woman to get an Ob/Gyn license in the U.S., and tried to help. She went back to school in Philly. A dorm-mate seduced her."

Fran looked grim. "A lesbian predator. Fixated on her tits."

I just stared at her. She had it nailed.

"To coin a phrase, 'Been there; done that.'" She grimaced. "If a male does that he's an adolescent pig; if a female does it, it's empowering sisterhood and womyn-power or some such bullshit." I'd never heard her use a vulgarity before. "The hypocrisy, the lying, infuriates me." She took a deep breath, parting her blanket with her fingers, and looked down. "So these were not the attraction, eh?"

"They're part of it, sure, but mostly because they're part of you. Like your gorgeous eyes, sweet lips and cute butt. Oh, yeah - did I mention your working brain?"

"Y'know," she said, turning and pushing her lush self against me, pulling her blanket over me as well as her, "I sort of figured that." She sighed against me. I liked that. "And you 'lost touch'?"

I looked down at her until she returned my gaze. "If that phone rang right now - right damn now - and she needed me, I'd be there before the echo quit. But, yeah, she chose it, and I have to respect that."

"And leave me and my young big tits here alone." Teasing-skeptical.

"Not necessarily. Your choice. You'd be welcome to come along. Hell, you'd probably help."

She quirked her luscious lips in a half-smile, and then she kissed me, right between my breasts, on my sternum - over my heart.

"And I'd be glad to meet her."

"Yeah, well, I'd be glad to se her again, but..."

"Her choice," she murmured. I felt her face moving back and forth, a negation. "What are we going to do about you?"

"I have plenty of suggestions." I reached down to cup, then caress, one preposterous breast.

"I'll bet you do, but I hope some breakfast is near the top of the list."

That could be arranged, too.

Clad in matching hooded gray rain ponchos - a neighborhood discount store had offered them at $4 each a year before, so I'd bought five - we strolled south, down Third Avenue, in the drizzle. The nasty weather meant we largely had the sidewalk to ourselves. At the door of the apartment building where she was staying, there was a brief but tingling brushing of lips.

"Later? I can call?" she asked in the damp vestibule, strewn with menus and advertising flyers.

"Any time."

So we chatted on the phone, and then she was very excited about her final interview with [CEO of Major International Thinktank]. She was totally psyched for it. With her brains and personality, I fully expected her to be hired on the spot.

Instead, Tuesday night, around 7:15:

"If you're not too busy, I'd like to talk with you."

With, not to. One of the reasons I was getting crazy for her. More important, at the moment, was an undertone in her voice.

"Sure. When?" Calmly.

"How about today, like really soon?"

Something was definitely wrong. "Get over here, kid."

"Thanks."

As soon as she got off the line, I got on my computer and started going into what I call my "special" files, getting them ready for quick access. By the time the electronic fart of the doorbell BLAHHHHTED, I was loaded for bear and ready to rock. What I was not ready for was the way she locked.

Fran looked worse than the way she had on that day, a year - Was that all it had been? - before when she'd confessed to the dreadful living situation for her (now not-so-lucky) ex-boyfriend in a studio with three other people.

"Come in, drop your coat and snuggle up on the couch. Get you anything?"

She looked ready to weep or collapse or both. She shook her head, threw her coat across the arm of the sofa, huddled into the corner with the afghan - older than her - pulled it across her and curled into a ball.

"What happened?" As if I didn't suspect. I settled onto the hassock in front of the sofa.

"He... he kind of groped me." Spoken into the afghan. I pulled out my phone, punched up a number.

On the second ring: "This is Elizabeth -"

I cut her short. "Mike. I need you."

"Twenty minutes."

"Who was that?" Fran asked.

"Liz."

"Why did you - ?"

"Because there's no way it gets better. Time to call in the A Team. What else?"

She sniffled. This was not a woman who sniffled. This was a smart woman, educated and tough by experience and lineage. "He said... he said that if I didn't... I didn't... Well, he'd see to it I didn't get anywhere in the field."

A predator. There's a way to deal with predators. I punched in another cell number.

"Dan - "

"Mike," I interrupted/ "We need you."

Pause. "You at home, in Midtown?"

"Yep."

"I'm in Amsterdam. Be a couple of hours. Can you hang in there, or do you need the Marines?"

He wasn't referring to Uncle Sam's Misguided Children; he meant the really scary ones, the ones who give Andrew Vachss nightmares.

"Not that immediate, but we need you. Predator."

"'We'?"

I could hear his eyebrows go up.

"I'll explain, and you'll see."

"On my way."

I pressed the EXIT button on my cell. Fran was staring at me.

"Who did you call?"

"My half-brother." I settled onto the sofa next to her and urged her to cuddle into my arms. She hesitated for a moment, then welcomed it.

"I didn't know you had any siblings. Is he a big guy like you?"

I allowed a tight smile. "No, but he is about the last person in the world you want to have pissed off at you."

"You make him sound scary."

"He's not, usually. Actually, for the most part, he's more of a pussycat than Drat." I nodded toward Brainless, who was licking herself. If humans could do that, would we have gotten past Adam and Eve?

"So, what happens now?"

"Assess, research, plan and execute." I snuggled her little closer, "But for the moment we rest, catch our breath and feel -"

"Safe."

Right on time, 20 minutes later, two loud raps on the door were followed by, "Liz, here," and then the keys in the lock. (Of course she had a set.) She oozed into the room - in a an olive-green formal Kenneth Cole, which I had never known nor even suspected she owned - and a matching long wool cape, looking like a panther on a mission. "Hi. Bring me up to speed." As she shucked the cape and settled on the hassock, putting her enormous tote bag - absolutely unfashionable - at her feet and began pawing through it. She came up with a laptop, a DayPlanner, a Blackberry and a cell phone. She kicked off her shoes.

Fran was happy to see her, which I could tell because she immediately perked up, but the perkiness was concealed beneath the afghan. I waved a greeting and said simply, "Thanks, Liz."

"Boring stuff tonight. You got me out of there. Give." As she booted the Vaio.

Fran started slowly as I peeled off the afghan, but Liz has good people skills and soon got the whole story, in ugly detail. By which time Liz was going through her files.

She was peering at a listing. "Anyone else working on this?"

"I called Dan. He'll be here in a few hours." I saw Liz's glance. "He's in Amsterdam."

"You called Dan?"

"Predator."

Liz shook her head as she manipulated the trackball, scrutinized the screen. "So... the idea is -?"

"Until that sonuvabitch glows; then send in the heat-seekers."

She looked up and fixed Fran with a level gaze that made me think of what had cleared the lions from South Africa and Rhodesia. "I don't think you know how bad he's got it for you. He called Dan." She muttered something in Swahili, shaking her head in amazement. Then: "OK, here we go." She donned the headset of the cell and punched numbers.

"Hi, Jerry. Liz." Pause. "Yes, that one, and, no, I won't pop your eardrums." Liz's last name (Swahili) involved an explosive glottal sound that could be damaging on an ear phone. She made nice small talk - How was his nephew (and godchild)? Was he still seeing... Sorry it didn't work out. Except that with Liz, it wasn't really "small" talk; she really wanted to hear about it.

Ten minutes later, Jerry was agreeing to call her back with -

"Goodies. Trust me on this."

"And his connection is?"

"Financial analyst, and on the board of directors of that outfit. Mr. [CEO of Major International ThinkTank] has a very cushy remuneration deal. Only a quarter-mil in taxable salary, but he's also gets comped to a three-bedroom penthouse on East 45^th, exclusive use of a rather expansive vacation home near East Hampton, a chauffered limo, an unlimited and only slightly audited expense account and... you get the picture."

I nodded. "Respectable Roy Cohn."

"Jerry is going to get back to me with info on who holds what paper."

My eyebrows hurt when I realized what she had in mind.

Liz smiled her hungry-kitty smile. Then: "Look, people, I'd really like to get out of this formal torture garment. Got anything I can wear?"

"You don't have to wear anything at all, Liz."

"Don't start with that shit. Besides, it's chilly in here."

Drat mewled disconsolately as I stood and headed for the bedroom. "Fran, will you do the honors for the wretched beast?" I called.

"But she has plenty of -"

I rummaged through bureau drawers. "Of course she does. Shake the Science Diet box over her dish and scratch her head." Found it. "OK, Liz."

And I found myself standing in my bedroom with an unbelievably sexy woman preparing to take off her gown. Under which, I was willing to bet folding money, she wore panties and nothing else. I handed her the sweatshirt. She held it up.

"Road Runner™?" She frowned. "Wasn't this Gina's?"

"Mine; Gina liked it. Should fit you OK. Excuse me." I squeezed past her - she was still wearing the cell-phone headset - into the living room, where Fran was doing the right thing by Drat, i.e., spoiling her. Yes, Drat was training Fran well, too.

"Can I get some help with this zipper?"

"Don't start with that shit, " I answered.

"Maybe Fran..."

Fran straightened, bobbling slightly, going to high beam and smiling eagerly.

"Not now, Liz. Back up to the door, and I'll get it. And if you so much as flash me, I'll grab you and fuck your brains out."

She snorted. "Yeah, like you're that way. C'mere." At which point her cell chirped. Her perfectly toned back appeared in the doorway as she said, "Liz, here."

I tugged the zipper. I consciously suppressed the urge to drool at that flawless ebony flesh. Fran was alluring, sexy and captivating; Liz was a good definition of Female. But forever beyond my reach or even grope... if I wanted us to remain friends. And I desperately did. Maybe I am getting old. Or smart.

"Can you send me that data, maybe as a file, without getting yourself into risk territory?" She shrugged the shoulders off the gown. She was making me crazy. "Thought so; that's why I called you. One more thing: Suppose something happened to the files at those companies, like they got somehow mangled by something that looks like a power surge, how quickly would the effects be felt?"

The gown started to slither off her. Oh, Fran! This would be a good time to make your presence known to me.

"Yes, because the friend of a friend has told me something. He's a predator, Jerry."

Fran came up behind me as Liz began stepping out of her gown.

"Really? Really? Get me some phone numbers. Let's fry this mother."

"Wow." From behind me, as Liz stood tall and gorgeous and sinewy, clad only in her (silver) thong panties. I'd only been wildly fantasizing about her for a few years; she made the fantasies look pretty lame. That ass, alone...

Liz glanced back, wriggling her fingers: We'll deal with this later.

Fran tugged my waist. I grudgingly let myself be hauled away. Liz was kicking the door shut, saying, "He what? What?" Pause. "Will you help?" Pause. (Muffled by the closed door): "I thought so; that's the other reason I called you."

Drat was watching our minuet with eyes wide. Fran hooked her fingers in my belt and turned me. "You've known her how long and never -"

"She made it really clear that I'd lose things in trios, starting with my hand and her friendship."

"Wow. She's really sexy, you know."

"I noticed. Do you want to get into something more comfortable?" She was in a maroon bodystocking and another madras wrap skirt that draped to her ankles. She looked gorgeous and fetching and probably didn't know how much so. And where did she get those - never mind.

"That blue tee-shirt,, the long one -?"

At which moment Liz burst back into the living room, headset still in place. "Can you do that?" Pause. "Good. I'm going to call some of the other ones. Talk to you later."

She whipped off the headset. "That no-good mother-" And she calmed herself with a visible effort. Liz glared at me. "How did you get him wired so completely and so quickly?"

"Practice; I've seen his kind before. Give."

She filled us in. Mr. [CEO of Major International ThinkTank] had apparently made it a life goal to fill his office with Asian women who would be beholden to him for one reason or another. For him, Fran was a curvaceous new league.

"Now?"

"I'm going to call a few of them. This might take a while."

"I want to get comfortable, too," Fran announced. "If you'll excuse me -?" I nodded as she sidled into the bedroom.

"If you need some help, just let me know," Liz said.

I glared: Don't start with that shit. She grinned at me, called up a file on her Blackberry and starting punching numbers into her cell with one hand as she settled into My Liddl Workstation and used her other hand to activate my cablemodem connection.

In the kitchen, I started boiling water for tisanes (herbal teas) and considered a couple of fingers of Knob Creek, then decided against it; too much alcohol. I was going to need a clear head for this. Fran padded barefoot into the kitchenette, bobbling (slightly) in the long, faded-blue tee-shirt that came down to her bare, unreasonably lovely knees, her hair completely loose. She looked scrumptiously vulnerable. I had some Celestial Seasonings boxes opened and on the counter next to the clear, tempered-glass Marley mugs.

From the living room: "Hi, this is Liz. the African woman who was in your office a couple of weeks ago. We chatted briefly." As if her body wasn't sufficiently alluring, her throaty voice with its exotic accent was enough to give me a hard-on.

Fran was examining the selection of tisanes.

"Yes, that one. Something has come up, and I need a little help with it. Your boss, Mr. [CEO of Major International ThinkTank], hit on one of my clients, a Vietnamese woman with a great resumé and really big -" Pause. "Yes, her. I understand he makes a hobby of this, and I want to help stop it. Do you feel comfortable talking about it, in confidence?"

Fran leaned in front of me and looked up, quizzically. "What's she doing?"

"Assembling the plutonium. See a tea you'd like?"

By 10:30, Liz had finished her calls and picked up her files from "Jerry," who sounded like an OK guy. He definitely went on my personal A List for his help. Fran had slumped into the bedroom to sleep - after such a stressful day, it was no wonder that she was worn out - and Liz asked, "Can I crash here?"

I stared at her, in my ex-lover's sweatshirt. "Yeah, I think that's OK."

"Mike, I said 'here,' not 'with you.' C'mon."

I sighed heavily. "Yeah, I know."

She cocked a hip and glared at me. "Just stop it. You're going to crawl into bed with a smart, stunning babe you're clearly on overdrive with. I'm going to be shoe-horned onto an undersized sofa with a spoiled cat for company." Then she grinned.

It took me a minute. "Don't say it."

"Happiness is a warm -"

I guess my expression got to her.

"Could not resist."

"Try to resist. I just had a lover take off with another woman."

Her face softened. "I know. I'm sorry." She knew about Gina, in all of the lubricious detail and subsequent unexpected disappointment. I still missed her, but I was oddly happy that she and Christine had found joy with each other. "I hope you know I'm not like that."

"You know I trust you." I left the rest unsaid.

She just nodded. "What time is Dan getting here?"

"He's in Amsterdam and said it'll be a few hours."

"If he gets to de Gaulle or Heathrow, he won't even get a red-eye for a while. We're probably talking eight or nine a.m." Her eyes got distant. "It'll be good to see him again."

I tried to read her face. "Liz, are you implying -?"

She shrugged, which made marvelously crazing conical things happen under the Road Runner™ sweatshirt.

"If I was ever going to go back to men..." She grinned. "Don't worry; you'd be my second choice."

"Story of my life. Say 'Good night,' Gracie." I lumbered into the bedroom, changed into some incredibly sexy flannel blue-plaid pajamas from Kmart and allowed myself to suffer falling into bed with a smart, gorgeous 5-foot-5 beauty with 34D tits. Hey, it's a tough job, but...

"Izzat you?" Fran buzzed, rolling into my arms so we were nestling like spoons beneath the blankets. "Oh, yeah. 'S OK."

"Who else were you expecting?" I muttered, figuring she was half-asleep, at least.

But, again, I had underestimated that wicked-sharp mind of hers: "Maybe her."

"In my dreams." I was on my right side. She tugged my left arm down, over her shoulder so it was pressed between those startling breasts and my hand over her abdomen. Amazingly, I dozed off almost immediately, my face buried in her hair and my awareness consumed with her scent and warmth.

Sometime around five, I was dimly aware of Fran stirring and pulling back the blankets.

"Huh?" I'm really witty when awakened from a sound sleep.

"Gotta tinkle. The tea."

I lay there, half-conscious, hearing the water running and the toilet flushing and missing her in my arms, starting to doze. Then I felt the shift in weight on the mattress - and then another one. "Make some room," Fran was saying, nudging me to the outer edge of the bed as she climbed in.

My eyes opened wide. Fran lay next to me, and Liz was on the other side of her.

"I know how uncomfortable that sofa is," Fran whispered. "And it's cold, and I want everyone to be warm. Especially me."

Of course, in the pre-dawn darkness in a heavily draped bedroom illuminated only by the annoying digits on the radio-clock, Liz was a barely perceptible shapely movement with bright eyes.

"Are you going to be OK with this?" she whispered to me across Fran's face.

"Not if this turns out like..."

"Not my intention."

I held her gaze, weighed, considered, reconsidered, made a leap of faith. "I trust you."

Her eyes seemed to glisten a bit. "You can."

"Let's all snuggle up and keep me warm," Fran hummed, on her back between us. I rolled to my side and put my arm lightly across her - I didn't want to smoosh her boobs - and rested my hand on her lower belly. After a moment of rustling, I felt Liz's slender fingers find, then twine with mine. And then Fran's small hand covered both.

Can you believe I actually fell asleep that way?

Of course, none of us had maintained the presence of mind to set an alarm, so I didn't stir until about 10:15, when I heard a soft tapping on the entry door, followed by keys in the locks. I opened my eyes to find Liz with her head on Fran's shoulder and one hand covering Fran's pubis. Fran had her hand over the crotch of my pajamas. As the steam heat had been on for a couple of hours at the point, we had somehow discarded both blankets and were covered only by a sheet.

At which point I heard. "Hey, guy. It's Dan. Are you home?" And he stuck his head into the bedroom and spotted us on the bed just as Liz opened her eyes.

"Holy shit," he blurted. "I thought I just left the Red Light district."

Liz chortled. "Don't jump to conclusions."

"Why would I do a thing like that?"

"Wuzzat?" murmured Fran. reaching down to cover Liz's hand over her pussy as she gently fondled my crotch and slowly opened her eyes. "Who the hell are you?"

Dan hummed the opening bar of "Sympathy for the Devil." Liz completely lost it at that stage, convulsing with laughter.

"I'd like you meet my brother, Dan."

"Omigod." She frantically grabbed at a blanket and pulled it over us.

"Thanks for getting here. Toss your coat and get some coffee under way, OK? Did you get any shuteye on the redeye?"

"Coupla hours." He backed out of the bedroom. "You guys get as indecent as possible while I prepare the elixir of life."

I rolled out of bed and grabbed my purple robe for Fran and the white terrycloth number for Liz, who was already unfolding - long, lean, limber, luscious, all strong and ebony and so damned disheveled and sexy - and sliding to the bottom of the bed to let herself off the mattress. That process pulled the Road Runner™ sweatshirt up to her waist, revealing that at some point in the night, her silver thong panties had been shed. After gawking for a moment at her gorgeous, ripe pussy, I started wondering if I had missed something.

"No," she said, standing and tugging the sweatshirt down, "you didn't miss anything. It just never hurts to be prepared." As she reached over to accept the white robe, she gave me an odd look. That kind of shook me up. This was one very tough, very smart person. Remember: She was a Zulu who spent her childhood in a land still ruled by the demonically evil apartheid. She'd overcome that, gotten herself an education, come to America and created a career and a life for herself - before her 30^th birthday. And she was giving me an odd look, as if there was something she wanted to say but was hesitating.

"What?"

"I really liked that, Michael," she said very softly. "You two seem to fit so well, to be completely in synch, yet I felt welcomed and... comfortable. Like I belonged." Her eyes misted. "I... I could get used to that."

"Omigod," Fran whispered from the blankets. Liz turned to her. "That's exactly how I felt."